


The Sea Witch

by idrilswritings (idrilhadhafang)



Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen, Original Work, The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Aunt-Niece Relationship, Brother-Sister Relationships, Burns, Deal with a Devil, Disfigurements, Exile, Fairy Tale Retellings, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, Gen, Little Mermaid Retelling, Magical Accidents, Merpeople, Original Fiction, POV Female Character, Self-Sacrifice, Short Story, Spells & Enchantments, Strong Female Characters, Villainesses, burned alive, not the disney version, villain origin story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22439362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilswritings
Summary: Every gift has its price.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Female Character
Kudos: 3
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	The Sea Witch

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Matchmaker
> 
> Warnings: Graphic violence
> 
> Author’s Notes: Call this something that was bothering me. Also, this isn’t based on the Disney version. Thought I’d clarify. It started off as a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”, but it kind of became its own.

“You do realize,” Kira the Sorceress says, “That should you take this risk, there is no turning back.”  
  
The cave where she works is simple. Cozy enough. Packed with texts that have somehow withstood the crushing depths of the ocean. Various seashell necklaces and things of that nature. It was something Kira’s mother, Annie, used to do. Kira is told that she’s much like her, down to her flaming red hair and bright green eyes.   
  
She can only hope that she can be as great as her mother. Helping those who need it most. Kira’s felt a desire to help others when she can, and Arion, her brother, has expressed the same thing. (Kira thinks he’s doing well, all things considered. The good king)  
  
Alexis speaks. “I am sure. For Pacifica, I would do whatever I could to preserve it. Completely.”  
  
“I know.” Kira wishes that war wasn’t a concept that existed, of course. It can be as senseless as it is sensible. Too many bodies left over, too many lost souls in more ways than one. “Just be careful. Even if you survive the war, you’ll come back changed. This I know.”  
  
“I thought as much,” Alexis says.   
  
Kira assembles the ingredients in that moment for the necessary brew, humming softly to herself in ways that remind her too much of her mother when she was making one of her creations with seashells. With little bits of coral. She doesn’t know what she’s humming, but she doesn’t really care. She hums because she’s on the right track. She can help the merman, Alexis. To give him the strength to defend his people from humans...she will do what she can.   
  
_Just imagine their reactions when a merman bests them..._  
  
She doesn’t know what ingredient she added to make the cauldron backfire, but it explodes. Alexis — she watches, horrified, as the explosion all but roasts the skin from his bones.   
  
And for her — the rest is pain.   
  
  
***  
  
Kira wakes moments later, and the first thing that she notices is that her arms...her arms are all but scorched and scarred. Some would say it’s impossible, but light from the cauldron can be...volatile when it backfires. She’s also in chains, chains that make her feel like heavy weights are on her limbs. And Arion — it would be one thing if he was angry, but it’s another thing to see him actively and honestly disappointed.   
  
She doesn’t know how to deal with it. The grim set of his mouth, like the idea of delivering her sentence hurts him to do.   
  
He exiles her. Kira can’t help but feel that, all things considered, it’s more than she deserves.   
  
  
***  
  
Exile gives her plenty of time to contemplate. Kira dislikes the word “mope”; she does not under any circumstances feel sorry for herself. She’s not a petulant, pouty child. But she does regret. She could have turned out, in the end, truly great if not for that mistake that she made. If not for the fact that she failed.   
  
She didn’t mean to. But that hardly matters, does it? She still failed. She still ruined a life. Ruined a chance. Yet another song has been silenced, and Kira doesn’t like thinking about it. She still knows that she must. A song has turned to silence, all thanks to Kira’s “good intentions”.  
  
She still occasionally goes over in her memory the incident. The explosion. The flash of white light — and coming to with her skin terribly burned, like the light itself all but roasted away her flesh.   
  
It wasn’t supposed to be that way. The truth is, her lost beauty is the least of her concerns and still is. She would be a truly pathetic being if she wallowed in self-pity over that, of all things.   
  
She tries to atone. Tries to do small tasks to help those who need it most. Arion isn’t perfect, after all. There are whispers of a badly burnt and disfigured woman helping sailors lost at sea, or curing ailments. (Arion doesn’t stop by to see her. Kira supposes that’s fair; no amount of good deeds will ever convince him that she’s more than just a murderer) Most of the time, though, she watches her burn scars heal, watches the memories become all but scorched in her flesh. She watches, atones and waits.   
  
Until the girl. Arion’s youngest daughter, only eighteen. Until her.   
  
***  
  
The girl comes to her, and there’s something about her that reminds Kira of things that she’d rather forget. A more idealistic girl, curious and wide-eyed and wondering about what it would be like to be a human on land. Well, Kira thinks, maybe she wasn’t curious about that necessarily. But she definitely was curious, wide-eyed, idealistic. She wouldn’t have gotten so far if she hadn’t been idealistic. And she wouldn’t have stayed there if she didn’t believe. Kira the Sea-Witch, believing so desperately in helping others, believing in doing what she could just to make sure everything was okay.   
  
She’s the same now, and yet not the same. She’s been hardened, and hardened souls can be a sharp tool of their own.   
  
“You’re her,” says the girl, and Kira can’t help but be taken aback by her voice. How it sounds. It’s soft and pretty, and Kira can’t help but think of old melodies of the sea. The girl is a gifted musician, she knows that much. Spinning her longings for land, and for her prince, into songs of her own.   
  
“None other,” Kira says. “Are you afraid, Mari?”  
  
Marina bites her lip in that moment. It’s clear that she doesn’t quite know what to think of the woman she’s seeking out to be her savior. “You could say that,” she says. “My sisters would be furious if they knew I was here.”  
  
“Possibly,” Kira says. “I know why you’re here, child. I’ve heard your song, traveling throughout the seas.”  
  
“Am I so transparent?” Mari says. “Then again...I feel very much torn between land and sea.”  
  
“Then,” Kira says. “I can help you with that. Whatever I can give you, I will.”  
  
Mari swallows. Then, “It’s said that you can perform miracles. Turn poverty to riches, chaos to order. You’re powerful and strong.”  
  
“Not all-powerful,” Kira says. “I have...been imperfect, admittedly.”  
  
“I heard the stories,” Mari says. “But I doubt you are that bad. Not truly.”  
  
If only she knew. Kira knows that this unquestioning optimism wouldn’t last if Mari knew of her past mistakes.   
  
“I don’t think you’re even as frightening as the stories say,” Mari says. “You look like one of us.”  
  
Kira wishes. “You came to me because you wanted to be human,” Kira says. “Because you also love. A man that you saved in a storm.”  
  
Mari nods. "I had to,” she says. “I know it would blow our cover, but I couldn’t just let him drown. Father was furious. Mostly because he was worried I could have been killed...or I could have been captured, then killed.”  
  
“Your father has too low an opinion of humans,” Kira says. “Even in the most bigoted, poisoned environment, at least one human will choose decency.”  
  
“Exactly!” Mari says. She looks beautiful and fierce and earnest in her conviction, and Kira feels a sort of admiration she hasn’t expected to feel. “And I’ve...spoken with him. Always keeping my secret, of course. He doesn’t know where I come from. Who I am. But around him, I feel safe. Other mers don’t know me, Kira. They think they do, but they never could. Where I’m from. Who I am. What I saw.”  
  
Kira nods. At this point, she’ll do anything she can. At this point, if Mari can get her happy ending, Kira will do whatever she can. And because Mari...she reminds Kira of things, long forgotten. Things she doesn’t want to get rid of.   
  
***  
  
The gift comes with a price. Mari must give up her voice. Kira wonders why, of course — then again, she rationalizes, she can do whatever she can to balance the scales. Perhaps she can find a work around. Hurting her young niece...that she can’t do, even though Kira is irredeemable. Not the girl who somehow looks at a woman who was a wreck of what she once was and sees someone worthy.   
  
“You will not be alone,” Kira says. “We will share a body. In many ways, I will be with you, though you cannot see me.”  
  
Mari, slowly, nods. Kira wonders if the girl even fully understands how much she’s willing to give up. One won’t know where Mari’s voice ends and Kira’s begins. Of course, Kira’s voice being sacrificed is a small price to pay for her niece.   
  
To take her instead...  
  
“I am ready,” Mari says. “I will not fail.”  
  
“Then,” says Kira, “Let us begin.”


End file.
